It has occurred to me… or really, it slowly crept on me, that by logging my food every day and striving for the perfect calorie goal, I am simply trading one obsession for another. I either compulsively over-eat or I obsessively diet, accepting nothing but black and white. Logging works great for most people. Logging worked well for me initially.. I just wonder if maybe logging my food has caused a mental rift in my mind between “good” and “bad” foods and “good” or “bad” days.

It’s like I believe that my nature is inherently always gravitating to the “bad.” My knee jerk reaction is to make the days I don’t log the ones where I frantically, excitedly, guiltily scramble to fit in every “bad” food I have been missing over the past few weeks of meticulous calculating and logging everything I ingest.

I made the decision to learn to eat better without logging during this past week. I was having a conversation with my roommates at the dinner table about my habits, my likes, my dislikes, and my overeating issues. One of my roommates, who has always been able to think of just about anything objectively, suggested that I attempt to wean off of logging and look at food as just food. The suggestion was appalling at first; “Logging works,” I thought, “There’s no reason to fix what isn’t broken.”

His suggestion planted itself like a seed in my mind and grew until I realized that my goal was never to be so obsessed with losing weight. My goal was to learn healthy habits, to get to my goal weight, and to look the way I wanted. It occurred to me that my logging obsession is just as mentally unhealthy for me as overeating is for my body. An unhealthy mind cannot make a healthy body. My solution was to utilize something I learned from a class for adoptive and foster parents that I had to take for my job. In order to run an orderly household, parents need to make clear, concise, simple rules that govern the household, such as “be kind,” “be respectful,” and “be honest.” I needed to make rules like these for my lifestyle so that I could simplify it rather than over-complicating it with numbers and figures.

1.) Only eat when hungry. This is a habit that logging completely broke me of doing. I got into a groove with logging that led me to believe that I should eat every 2-3 hours on the dot and that I should eat only what fit into my macros. While this is effective for some, I lost some of my ability to recognize hunger signals and deal with hankerings for random food items by replacing them with healthier options. The result is that on days when I didn’t log, I ate whatever I damn well pleased because that’s what I felt like having. This does not lend to a healthy lifestyle throughout. I can’t only be healthy when I log; I need to be making healthier choices all the time. I’m trying to create a lifestyle, not a cage.

2.) Try to keep each meal under 500 calories (estimated). Eating smaller meals as a guideline helps with portion control and allows me to spread my calories out over a long day at work. Since I’ve been logging for so long, I know what most of the foods I have been eating lately contain as far as protein and calories. This also keeps me from trying to meet a calorie goal for each day and gives me some flexibility. I may only feel like eating 1,000 calories one day but feel like eating 2,300 the next day and have all the energy for a workout.

3.) Eliminate as much sugar as possible. I know that sugar is the enemy, you know that sugar is the enemy, but we still eat a lot of sugar in our coffee, in snacks, and in sauces because it’s freaking delicious. It also causes cravings and helps our bodies to retain fat, so it has to go. As I let go of the logging process, I want to try to replace sweet food items that I normally would have eaten, especially at the end of the day, with something just a bit less sweet but still satisfying. I’ve also been trying to steadily drink my coffee just a little bit darker each day so that I can eliminate the daily use of sugar in my coffee as well. Sugar is a trigger for me, and I have avoided eliminating its evil from my life for too long.

4.) Get a fruit or vegetable on every plate. This rule follows my sugar rule because fruits and veggies have fiber that help break down sugar more slowly and help with digestion. Not only that, but a fruit or veggie with each meal can help me feel full longer, give me essential nutrients, and gives me a reason to try new things. Whether I slap spinach on a turkey burger, avocado on my scrambled eggs, or replace pretzels with carrots, getting something colorful on each plate encourages healthier habits and a healthier body.

5.) Drink a lot of water. I carry a 32oz bottle of water with me all day long, drink about two of those, and then have another couple of glasses of water at dinner. Some days I drink more than others, especially if I’ve been sweating a lot in the gym. Water is the magical elixir of life. Just drink it.

6.) Forgive yourself and move on. If I had a particularly rough day with food choices, no one is going to know it but me, regardless of how fat, sluggish, and gross I feel. No one can tell that you just ate a pint of Ben & Jerry’s in 5 seconds flat just by looking at you. Put it behind you, make your next meal a healthy one, drink lots of water, and just get over it. Move on.

Maybe it’s just my recent interest in yoga talking, my nervous anticipation about being ridiculously busy with graduate school beginning this summer, or maybe I’m just having a moment of clarity, but this is what I have always wanted. I have always wanted to forget that food is the enemy and realize that food is power. Food is fuel, but food is not an emotional dam for my anxiety or disappointment. For the next couple of months, I expect to be more aware of my body and its signals. I don’t expect to lose a lot of weight. If I do, that’s great, but I think that the most important makeover that needs to happen for me is in my mind.

I am hoping that by forming a more friendly relationship with food and with my body that the rest will fall into line later. Here’s to hoping.

When I first began losing weight, I had little to no food education. I just knew that “bad” foods made me fat and “good” foods helped me lose weight. For a couple of months, I ate all the same foods I was familiar with and just ate less of those foods. Over time, I realized that certain foods kept me fuller and had less calories, allowing me to eat more. This realization took only a few months. After this, I started to think more critically about food and its nutritional value. I enrolled in a nutrition class at college, and what I learned completely blew me away.

Agricultural corporations just want your money; they don’t give even two shits about your health and they will pay and/or threaten whoever is in the way to continue deceptively labeling your food so that you buy a brand instead of food items with nourishing ingredients.

This is going to be a sort of long post because I want to give the low down dirty business on food labeling and how to translate food labels. Food labels have their own language, guidelines, and rules, and it’s extremely important that those who wish to be healthier understand what all the evasive language, alternative names for ingredients, and unmentioned daily values really mean for our bodies.

1.) Low-fat or low sodium means it’s high in other buzzword nutrients or harmful chemicals… or BOTH! Food that is low in sodium, low in fat, and low in sugar does not appeal to the typical American’s taste buds, so companies advertise products as “low-fat” so that you’ll think it’s good for you when it’s really loaded with salt or sugar to help it taste better. Processed foods are notorious for this kind of trickery in advertising. Avoid foods that boast being low in any “buzzword” nutrients.

2.) Sugar can be named literally dozens of ways. FDA guidelines require ingredients to be listed from most to least. Fitspiring people generally don’t want to buy products that have sugar in the first few ingredients because it’s one of the most harmful ingredients in our food. What do food companies do about this? They alter the way they report the sugar in the food you’re eating. Sugar can be called things like “agave nectar,” “blackstrap molasses,” or “barley malt.” This tricks you into thinking there’s less sugar in the food you’re choosing.

3.) Sugar is a carb, but the FDA doesn’t require it’s percent daily value to be labeled separately. On any food label, sugar is listed under the carbohydrate category. The food label gives the percent daily value of carbohydrates, but the percent daily value of sugar is not required to be printed on the label. How is this harmful? If a food item has 8g of carbohydrates (3% daily value) and all 8g of those carbohydrates are sugar (just over 33% daily value) then you’re being led to believe that you’ve only consumed 3% of your daily sugar intake because sugar is just a carb, right?

4.) Chances are that your protein bar has more sugar than protein in it. When trying to help my not-so-health-obsessed boyfriend pick out a granola bar for breakfast, I took him to the breakfast aisle and told him that he could not buy any granola bar with less protein than sugar. Whey protein or soy protein taste is most easily covered by sugar. We found ONE box in the whole breakfast aisle that had more protein than sugar. Astounding! The same goes for protein shakes.

5.) The fewer ingredients, the better. In all, foods that have a short ingredient list, foods that don’t require nutrition labels (like vegetables and fruits), and foods that don’t have commercials are going to be the best foods for you. Try replacing one item at dinner, like your pre-packaged macaroni shells, with a food that has no commercial.

Just keep in mind that simple is better all the time. When in doubt, make it yourself so that you know exactly what’s in your food. Do you find logging your recipes difficult? MyFitnessPal has a function on their app that allows you to manually input all the ingredients you used in your meal and compile it into an entry for you! They even save it for later.

Keep in mind that these are things I learned over a long period of time. They don’t happen overnight, and they won’t be knee-jerk reactions as soon as you read them. Just as we learned unhealthy habits from childhood until now from our friends, family, and advertising, we must unlearn them. Just try to make one healthy choice at a time and add on when you feel like you’ve mastered it.

Sugar is a substance that causes cravings, encourages the storage of visceral fat, and is 8 times more addictive than cocaine. Companies that sell products with added sugar and high fructose corn syrup want you to believe that fat and salt are the main causes of weight gain, but that’s simply not true. Companies like these encourage us to “get up and move,” but they would never encourage us to eat less sugar because that affects their profits. If you want to learn more about sugar and how it’s killing America, check out Fed Up, a documentary featuring some of my favorite foodies and narrated by Katie Couric. It’s on Netflix! Be prepared to get enraged.

Check out the trailer here:

The average American woman should not consume more than 6 teaspoons (25g) of sugar per day, and the average American man should not consume more than 9 teaspoons (37.5g) of sugar per day (AuthorityNutrition). Daily, the average American unwittingly consumes 19 teaspoons of sugar per day. Added sugar is hiding everywhere, even in our ketchup, because it tastes great and it’s cheap. It’s the easiest, most cost effective way for brands to grab our taste buds’ attention and keep it. Currently, sugar is one of the only nutrients not required by the FDA to be quantified by a percent daily average on food labels. Deceptive labeling (as well as the fact that sugar can be called just about anything, such as agave nectar, barley malt, and blackstrap molasses) can trick Americans into eating more sugar.

Sugar does not have to be harmful for us. In moderation, and with the right combination of nutrients, sugar can be great! Fruit contains natural sugar but also has fiber in its skin and pulp, which helps us to break down sugar more slowly; however, soft drinks, fruit juices, candies, baked goods, and foods labeled as “low-fat” or “low-sodium” contain copious amounts of sugar and should be avoided. The first step to avoiding added sugar is to read labels. Foods like granola bars, cereals, sauces, condiments, and juices that claim to be healthy are responsible for much of America’s unhealthy sugar intake. Start small by eliminating or replacing one high sugar food from your typical diet and continue improving from there.

Sugar is highly addictive, and I did have and STILL have a huge problem with it. It seems like one cookie or one slice of cake at a party sends me into a huge downward spiral of compulsive sugary eating. When I think back to how I got started, I remember feeling so ashamed for eating entire bags of Hershey kisses (which isn’t even that great tasting to begin with, just full of sugar) or for making an entire pint of ice cream disappear while eating television. Lately, I’ve become sort of a food activist who is looking more closely at the marketing and psychology of the habits I’ve formed. I’ve been marketed to and prepared for this kind of lifestyle from early childhood until now. Not only that, but I grew up in the South where everything fried is standard and sweet tea is a staple.

The good news is that I have the power to reshape my habits and form my own ideas about what’s good food now. This past month, I made a bet with myself that I could eat healthy every single day, come in under my calorie goal, have minimal “treats,” and not miss a day of exercise. I did it. This weekend, I partied and had whatever I wanted to eat. It was delicious, but it was hard to bounce back from. However, after just one day back at my normal lifestyle of eating small meals with low sugar, I realize that I have formed some wonderful eating habits over the past 4 years.

That fact, over all else, makes this whole journey worth it. Do I care that I have loose skin or that I’m STILL 25 lbs away from my goal weight? Sure. Yeah, that bugs me sometimes, but you know what? I’m physically healthier and more fit than a lot of the skinny minnies who walk into the gym with me. Most importantly, I can run circles around the old me. The old me couldn’t even run.

What is my advice to those attempting to create healthier lifestyles? Take one item in your typical diet like soda or high-sugar granola bars and eliminate it or replace it with something lower in sugar. Even without watching calorie intake, a change to eliminate sugar should catalyze fat loss. Try it!

For the month of April, I made a promise to myself that I’d make it through all the emotions and turmoil I knew I’d be surrounded by during the first anniversary of my dad’s death. I knew that the month would be hard and that emotional eating would be possible. I vowed to use my color coded calendar to track my eating and exercise habits. I wanted to make every single day of April green, meaning that I got all my exercise in and did not go over my calorie goal each day. Well, I DID IT. As an incentive, I put a deposit down to get a tattoo on the last day of the month as a reward for my dedication. I didn’t lose any weight during this period of time; in fact, I gained three pounds, but I did lose about half a pant size. I primarily lifted weights throughout the entire month and did heavier cardio if I wanted a treat but had to earn it. The month was a huge journey for me emotionally and physically. I made progress on my physique and fitness levels, which was surely my primary goal, but I also gained some perspective on how to deal with emotional eating and the language I use when I talk to myself about my fitness goals. I learned to use more positive language and a “can do” attitude when I self-talk internally. Instead of saying to myself, “I can’t…” I would say, “I don’t/won’t.” This changes my perspective from being deprived to being empowered by my food and exercise choices. Instead of saying, “I should… go run or lift,” I said, “I will.”

Yesterday, I got a tattoo that is important to me because it has been my mantra throughout my entire fitness journey. “Comparison is the thief of joy.” I go to the gym twice a day more often than not, and I’m surrounded by a lot of different kinds of people there. Some are skinny, some are not. Some are fit, and some are not. I made an unhealthy habit of comparing myself and my journey to the physiques and lifestyles of people who had nothing in common with me except for one thing: the desire to be better today than we were yesterday. I would allow my envy for the girl who could run marathons or the guy who could do twenty unassisted pull ups to consume me with jealousy and poisonous anger, preventing me from fulfilling my ultimate goal of becoming better every time I hit the gym. We can’t choose the conditions or genetic pools into which we are born, but we CAN control how we respond to the hand we’ve been dealt. Resilience. Even though I’m nowhere close to where I’d like to be, I am stronger, faster, and healthier than I have ever been. The only person I should be competing with is me.

It is not yet finished because it was quite detailed and in a tender spot, so we’re finishing the color in about a month. Overall, I’m ecstatic about how it’s looking. It’s absolutely perfect, and he really captured what I was thinking when I asked him to design it.

I was completely unaware that when I set out to meet my goals consistently for the entire month that I would also gain so much understanding and self-reflective knowledge. I understand more thoroughly how I function under emotional stress, such as the anniversary of my dad’s death. I met all my health and fitness goals on that day. I got up early to work out, knowing that I would be going to his grave later in the day. I cried. I was upset, but I also learned to channel my sadness into both my workout and into creativity. I made a beautiful wreath to take to his grave.

I really didn’t expect this month to be so emotionally and mentally rewarding. I was expecting to be miserable, worn out, and depressed. Instead, I feel empowered, strong, and capable. Resilience is a funny thing.

I recently read a blog post that has become quite popular and was shared by a friend on Facebook, and I agreed with it wholeheartedly. The post, which you can read here, was written by a gentleman who lost 160 lbs after battling emotional eating and food addiction. He could not love himself at that weight, and he recognized that his addiction to food would kill him. He also addresses modern views on body image, that we should love ourselves no matter our size.

“There are a lot of platitudes about weight. One of them is that you should love yourself no matter your size. I’m here to say that’s bullshit. Being fat sucks. I love myself way more now than I ever have.”

Of course, there has been some backlash from those who feel that a person’s size is one of the least important things about them and that each human being is beautiful in his or her own way. I would never tell another person that they’re fat or hideous or shameful. I never would. Fat is definitely not the worst thing a person can be. J.K. Rowling said it best when she said, “Is ‘fat’ the worst thing a human being can be? Is ‘fat’ worse than vindictive, jealous, shallow, vain, boring, or cruel? Not to me.”

JK Rowling on true beauty.

On the subject of a human being’s WORTH rather than his or her appearance or health, yes, I agree with J.K. Rowling; however, from the exact same point of view as Alex Gray, the gentleman who overcame his addiction to food and lost 160 lbs, I know exactly what he means. He’s not including those who remain overweight due to hormone imbalances or medical issues. He’s not calling out those who really, truly accept themselves and would rather be a bit overweight than to monitor every ounce of food they ingest. He’s not talking to those who eat normally, recognize hunger signals, and lead active lives but remain a bit chubby. Alex is talking to those who can help themselves, want to help themselves, are not happy with themselves, and who need a kick in the pants to get started. He’s talking to the people who know they have a problem and make excuses to continue living an unhealthy lifestyle even though they’d be happier if they could learn to control their impulses to constantly gorge. He’s talking to the person he used to be.

“I’m talking to anyone who, like me, was consciously unrelenting in his or her pursuit of gluttony, and steadfast in balking at physical activity. I’m talking to people who have the audacity to lean on well-intentioned phrases like “love yourself at any weight” as a way to excuse their slothful lifestyle. For those who can do something about their size, and simply refuse to, trust me: Life is so much better on the other side.”

He’s talking to the person I used to be, the person who had fears about daily life and constant worries about every little thing that becomes more complicated simply due to size. Alex says,

“Rather, my dreams were simple: To buy off the rack and no longer perspire on a girl’s blouse when in close proximity; to feel at ease on furniture, and in plane seats, and theater chairs; to view staircases less as hostile threats and more like, well, steps; to stand in line for a roller coaster, or in the waiting room at the doctor’s office, without fretting; to have sex; to like myself; not to kick the bucket prematurely.”

How happy was I when I finally realized I could cross my legs without struggle or sit in a theater chair without my legs being squeezed in on both sides? How happy was I to finally buy my first pair of jeans from the standard sizes available in the store rather than ordering online for extended waistbands? How thrilled was I to find out that I no longer had to worry about my legs or arms touching the person next to me in the plane and that I no longer had to extend the seat belt to its full circumference to be safe on my flight? How elated was I when I donated blood and got my results back to find out that my blood pressure and cholesterol were normal?!

So, yeah, I was that person. I was the girl who said that size is just a number but cried in dressing rooms. I was the girl who was afraid to eat in public in lunchrooms and cafeterias because I was sure that no one thought I should be allowed to eat. I was the girl who told myself I could choose to eat whatever I wanted and then watched entire pints of ice cream and bags of chocolates disappear without feeling any sense of fullness. I was empty. I was the girl who skinny-shamed small girls and said, “big is beautiful.” But I didn’t feel it. I didn’t believe it. And I thought I was the biggest piece of shit person on the face of the planet because -I- was not happy with myself. My opinion was the only one that mattered, and it was the most destructive and negative opinion that could ever have existed.

I’m not saying that being skinny is happiness, because it’s not. I still have depression, anxiety, body hang-ups, fears, and bad self-esteem about other things. Happiness is finding your strength, and I found it while losing weight. The more I whittled down the fat away from my body, the closer I got to being the real, confident, witty, enthusiastic, optimistic, and unbreakable me that I knew was inside of me. It has been as much of a mental journey as a physical one.

I say that, depending on where you’re coming from, both J.K. Rowling and Alex are right. Does my size reflect my worth as a person? Absolutely not. Does my new lifestyle increase my sense of self-worth and help me to realize my worth as a person? Absolutely. I think that this is the point Alex is trying to make, and I’m proud of him for stating that opinion without being ashamed or without sugar coating it. America has enough euphemisms as it is. Let’s be honest about health and lifestyle choices. We can’t afford to waste life feeling shitty.

I’ve been MIA for a while due to vacation and a crazy tornadic storm that hit my hometown and damaged my roof, but here I am again!

So, I still write a column for our work newsletter every month that’s completely health based. I’ve written about how to eat well when dining out, the best ways to be healthy, and what to eat. This time, I wrote about how to calculate your basal metabolic rate (BMR) and how to factor activity and goals into that rate for personal calorie intake each day. Using the most up-to-date formula, I composed an article explaining how to use the formula to customize calorie intake.

Here’s the article below:

“Most government and medical websites provide cookie cutter guidelines for daily caloric intake. As I was beginning to write this article, I googled, “how much should I be eating?” The results were overwhelming, and each automated calculator gave me different answers. However, there is a more accurate way to calculate how much we should be eating each day based on age, weight, height, goals, and activity levels. Learning to calculate your basal metabolic rate, or BMR, will help you find a place to start with controlling portions and food intake. Your BMR is the number of calories it would take to run your body in a completely neutral environment, such as lying in bed all day. To find your BMR, use this formula:

Obviously, we cannot stay in bed every day, so we need to take activity into account. To calculate the amount of calories one would need in order to maintain his or her weight taking activity level into consideration, multiply your BMR by one of the following options:

Sedentary (Very little exercise/desk job) 1.2

Lightly active (Light exercise on 1-3 days a week or 2 hours of walking a day.) 1.375

Moderately active (Moderate exercise/sport on 3-5 days a week or 3 hours of walking a day.) 1.55

Very active (Hard exercise/sport on 6-7 days a week or 4 hours of walking a day.) 1.725

Extremely active (Hard daily exercise/sport and physical job including 5 or more hours of walking a day.) 1.9

This is the amount of calories you would need to maintain your weight while doing that activity. To lose weight, we need a caloric deficit. A pound of fat is worth around 3500 calories, so a 500 calorie deficit each day would yield a one pound loss each week. It’s safest and most sustainable to lose weight slowly, so a deficit of more than 1000 calories a day is not recommended. Keep in mind that this formula does not take into account any lean body mass or body fat percentage, so it’s only an estimation based on the average person of your weight, height, and age. As always, if you need extra help deciding how much to eat, have your doctor refer you to a nutritionist.”

I get that it’s not optimal to have to convert Imperial measurements of weight and height to metric measurements, but it makes the most sense. We can convert pounds to kilograms and inches to centimeters pretty easily just by typing it into Google. You just type it in and Google provides an automatic calculator. It’s so simple!

I posted an updated progress photo to my Facebook as my profile picture recently, and along with the tsunami of likes and comments came a message from an acquaintance who attended my high school. She’s a really super sweet young girl who just had a baby and is trying to lose some weight. I understand that it can be difficult to lose weight after a baby, and I can read through the lines of text the desperation of her predicament. She’s unhappy with her weight, but now she has a little human to take care of and less time to take care of herself than ever before. She’s looking for an easy or quick way to get thin or healthy.

I get this question ALL the time. “What is your secret to weight loss?” It comes to me via message or comment nearly every other time I post a progress photo.

I know what they’re hoping to hear. These fitspiring hopefuls want me to tell them that I ate only dark chocolate for a year or that I took a magic pill or made a wish to my fairy godmother and woke up skinny. We’re an instant gratification age; I get it. Really, I do. I want what I want when I want it. Now.

My response to questions like these get shorter every time, and not because I’m trying to be mean or spiteful but because it’s so hard to explain the changes I made and things I learned in 5 long years of changing my lifestyle. I used to write a novel and get excited that I’d inspired someone to be healthy, but now I realize that no one can convince any other person to make lasting changes. Just like an alcoholic can only change if they really want it for themselves, a person who is overweight and living an unhealthy lifestyle can only learn and change by doing it themselves and creating their own motivation. There is simply no way that I can convey to them all of the things I’ve changed and when I changed them over a 5 year span.

I began by logging, then walking, then running, then lifting, then eating clean and using bodybuilding workout programs on Bodyspace. It was such a gradual transition from pop, chips, and candy to water, greens, and lean protein. It has to be done gradually because it’s not a healthy transition any other way. It’s so difficult to see this question because I know I can’t do it justice. All I can do is give them a starting point and tell them to take off from there.

I wish her, and every other person who asks me for advice, the best of luck. I really hope that they learn to fuel their bodies and get healthy. It’s a wonderful thing! I just hope that they know that no one can do it for them, it’s hard, and that I spent hours in the gym and in the kitchen learning how to be a healthier person. I just never want to give anyone false hope that losing weight should be easy, but I do want them to know that it’s worth it.

When I started losing weight, everyone had some input on my progress. Most of the comments I got were positive. People were proud of me for having the willpower and initiative to do something about my lifestyle and turn my life around. Once I gained some confidence, I began posting before and after photos pretty often to show off my progress. Again, most responses were positive, but soon it became apparent that some people wanted to make sure that I knew I was beautiful when I was obese as well.

I remember getting compliments as a “bigger girl” that were backhanded, the comments that went something like, “You’re pretty for a curvy girl.”

That is NOT a compliment. Why should I be pretty for a fat girl? Who decides where I lie on the scale of attractiveness, much less how I am placed on the scale relative to girls who are the same size as me? Do we measure attractiveness on a skinny, chubby, curvy, or obese scale separately? Compliments should not have conditions. You either think that I am beautiful, or you don’t.

Now that I’m smaller, I get a lot more attention from those who are attracted to females. Sometimes, that attention comes from people who mocked me for my weight or who never even glanced twice at me in school. They make comments that, “time has been good to me.”

The gym has been good to me. Willpower has been good to me. Healthy eating has been good to me. I worked hard to become the person who finally catches your eye as a worthy match.

I’ve got news for you; my worth is not dependent upon your opinion of me. My worth has always been here. I have always been intelligent, kind, generous, and driven. All I lacked was confidence, and now I have that as well. Now I’m worth your time, effort, and flirtation?

I have no time, effort, or flirtation for a person who couldn’t see past my appearance and into who I really am.

The shittiest thing is that they actually believe that they’re so unbelievably awesome that this compliment is going to be the highlight of my day. They think they’re doing me a favor by even talking to me because they’re so outrageously shallow and vapid. They’re also under the illusion that I somehow had a momentary lapse in memory that caused me to forget how awful or indifferent they were to my presence for our entire acquaintanceship.

The amazing thing is that I’m confident enough to recognize an asshole who doesn’t deserve my time when I meet one.

I don’t mean to stroke my own ego, or maybe I do, but women who have made the choice to lose weight and be healthy are pretty special. We’re different than a lot of other women because we’ve fought a battle with ourselves that makes us stronger, healthier, and more confident; however, it’s important to remember that just because we met our goals we aren’t invincible or even half as confident as we put on. The truth about women who’ve lost a lot of weight is that we are fragile, sensitive, and hard on ourselves. It’s still a mental struggle for us every day to keep weight off or continue to lose it. Here’s what you might not realize is going on in your victoriously fit friend or other half’s brain:

1.) We wear colossal fat goggles. No matter how skinny or fit we feel, we still see a part of our old selves in the mirror. We can’t shake the idea that we should wear black all the time because it’s slimming or that we should wear baggy clothing to camouflage our now smaller or non-existent belly rolls. We’re always a memory away from reliving how we felt as bigger women.

2.) We have an inherent fear of “bad” foods or large amounts of foods. Holiday potlucks give us horrific lucid nightmares. Superbowl parties make us hyperventilate. Sometimes we’re convinced that one big party will make us fat forever. We fear that eating one cupcake at a birthday party will set us off into a binge that will last for weeks, causing an insatiable lust for all things covered in chocolate or caramel sauce.

3.) We are perfectionists, and we’re our own worst critics. We check in the mirror to make sure that thinner, more svelte figure is still there. We can’t believe it. And even if we do, we’re checking for other imperfections. We look at our behinds to check for dimples, our outer thighs to check for saddle bags, and our waistbands to check for the slightest hint of a muffin top. I’ve even gone home to change in the middle of the workday before because I felt like my pants made me look a little too big.

4.) We need a lot of encouragement even if we put on a facade. We need meaningful validation that our hard work was worth it and that we truly are better than we were before. We don’t just want to hear, “Honey, you’re beautiful.” We want to hear, “I really love what _____ has done for you in ______ area.” That is a lot easier to believe than a generic blanket statement about our overall appearance. Even then, we have a hard time accepting compliments and may brush it off as a joke.

5.) We can be overbearing and overzealous about our lifestyle. Sometimes we’re so passionate about the changes we’ve made and how much better we feel that we can’t help but blab about it. Sometimes that can be condescending or overwhelming for our friends and family because sometimes they just want to complain about how they’re feeling sluggish rather than have you fix it. We don’t mean to do it either. We’re sorry!

6.) We get really mad when people are lazy. We also hate when they complain about it. This happens to me all the time when someone asks me, “How did you do it?! What’s your secret?” Everyone knows that a secret doesn’t exist, but they’re hoping you’ll tell them that all you did was remove one ingredient from your diet or that you took a pill in order to see results. We know that it’s not that easy, so we get upset with people want to try and make it seem that easy. We know that there is no reward for laziness.

7.) We are not your personal nutrition and exercise encyclopedias. Yes, the occasional question about the healthiest way to cook or the recommended amount of exercise is okay. That makes us feel useful, and we love that you thought of us when you needed someone to ask! However, we don’t love when you think we’re going to customize a nutrition and exercise plan for you and you alone as a favor. That takes a lot of work, and we spent a long time enduring trial and error to find a sweet spot!

8.) We don’t want to watch reality TV shows about losing weight. We don’t want to listen to TV shows that use extreme measures to achieve unsustainable results. We also don’t want to hear about Dr. Oz and his miraculous Acai berries and green tea antioxidants. Anyone who lost weight the old fashioned way doesn’t have time for that kind of asinine crap. Likewise, if you ask us to give you our opinions on The Biggest Loser, get ready for a monologue that never ends.

9.) We still unintentionally bash naturally skinny people in our heads. We’re always going to be a little peeved that we couldn’t be part of that group of people who won the genetic lottery and inherited a super metabolism. Sorry, but we’re not sorry. It’s awesome for you, and you look great, but we secretly want to throttle you. Just know that it’s not personal.

10.) We struggle to love ourselves at any weight, any age, and in any setting. We are constantly striving for the perfection that doesn’t exist. We know that our battle with weight and unhealthy habits is a lifelong struggle, so we must be vigilant. We are always going to have something to work on, but women who have lost a lot of weight still have a hard time doing the most important thing to be healthy: to love themselves.

You remember in school how the teacher would tell you that cheating gets you nowhere because it doesn’t help you learn? You cheat on your homework and when it is time for the test, you fail miserably because you failed to actually gain any knowledge while copying answers? I was the kid in school who always got copied.

Using a food and diary log is pretty much the same way. If you omit items from your diary in order to look better to your peers on My Fitness Pal or elsewhere, you’re only hurting yourself. You’re not accurately logging, and that will hurt you because you’re not going to see the results you want. You have to be honest. Likewise, overestimating calorie burns just because the automated form in My Fitness Pal estimates that you burned 1,200 calories cleaning your house for an hour and a half is going to hinder you in your goals.

I know that food is enticing, but we can’t enter false information and expect for these things to physically become a reality. If you enter that you burned 1,200 calories shoveling snow for an hour and you actually only burned about 400, you really only burned 400. That snow wasn’t tiny, extremely dense lead shavings. Sorry, folks, but putting it in your log doesn’t make it magically true.

The logging is your homework, the weigh in is the test, and you’re going to fail if you falsify that information. If what other people think about your diary bothers you, make it private. It’s not mandatory to have a public diary on My Fitness Pal. This is something that BLOWS my mind.

I don’t know where My Fitness Pal gets some of their information for estimating calorie burn, but you can pretty much be sure that you didn’t burn more than 10 calories a minute while exercising. Trust me, if you were burning more than 10 calories a minute, you’d be drenched in perspiration and your heart would be coming out of your chest.

I know it’s hard to put in real effort because you’ve been used to being lazy or maybe you’re uninspired, but you’re only going to be disappointed when the scale doesn’t reflect the “awesome dedication” that you allegedly put in over the week. There is no way around the fact that this is a numbers game. If you want to see results, you have to do the work and be honest with yourself about it.